Processing of products, such as for example meat products, along a processing line requires some form of means for suspending the products or articles, typically from an overhead single rail conveyor system. Hangers suitable for supporting meat products are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,594,858, 3,792,508 and 3,982,300. In the case of this type of hanger, the hanger must be completely detachable from the conveyor system so that it can be loaded with products by hand. It is then lifted up into the conveyor system and placed in position on a transverse support bar. The products, such as meat products, are carried on the hangers along the conveyor rail, through various different processing stations. In a typical processing line for meat products this may involve cooking, washing, smoking, chilling and the like. The products are then unloaded from their hangers, and the hangers must then be passed through a washing chamber before they are reloaded.
A typical such processing line will thus have an endless conveyor, with the hangers simply being carried from the loading to the unloading station, and back to the loading station again in a continuous loop. A typical processing line will thus have corners at various places, depending upon the layout of the line, and the space available if it is being installed in an existing building, and the like. It has been found that in some cases the support bars and hangers, as they are carried around such corners, can become entangled, which then disrupts the processing line and may result in loss of finished product.
Another factor which must be considered is the type of manual work involved in loading the products onto the hangers and then attaching the hangers on their respective support bars. In order to facilitate this work, there is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,982,300 a support bar having a slide rail along which one end of the loaded hanger may be slid. The slide rail thus carries the weight of the load on the hanger, as the hanger is being introduced into the processing line. This improvement greatly facilitated the manual work involved, and was found to produce a significant speed up in operation.
It will however be noted that the slide rail system disclosed in such patent, must be designed for loading either from the right hand side or from the left hand side, but will not be equally adaptable to both sides. Thus for example if an owner of such a processing line wishes to load from both sides, or for example from either side alternately, it is not possible to use the slide rail system referred to.
Clearly, it is desireable to provide such a supporting system which as far as possible eliminates problems of entanglement between one such hanger and another in use, and which is also fully flexible so as to be capable of being loaded from one side or the other.